It's supposed to be

73 degrees in NC on Saturday, and we're supposed to have snow showers in NYC. Should I point out that it's officially spring as of 5:48am this morning? No. Best not to make it worse. I'm so ready for it to be warm! (I shout.) And, yes, I know that in a few months I will probably be complaining of the heat, or allergies, or bugs, or something, but right now I just want to be able to sit in the sun.

So, my sister is the coolest thing ever! She sent me an Easter basket loaded with chocolate, which is exactly what I need for getting through the next few weeks of rereading and rewriting. She also included this little motorized bunny that scared the bejesus out of my cat, which has already made it worth its weight in gold.

Also, for whatever reason, I decided to listen to Stone Temple Pilots while walking (meandering aimlessly) from the library to the subway last night, and when I got home I plugged their name into Last.fm and have been listening to great music ever since. It's making me all nostalgic and not at the same time. By that I mean, I know all these songs and haven't listened to them in forever (Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Temple of the Dog, Mudhoney, Alice in Chains, etc.), and they're making me miss my best friend and remember in a vague way us hanging out in high school, but they're not making me long for something I've lost. I've gained too much. I have too much to gain. This show is on the road. Moving on.

I tracked the repetition of "always" in Castle last night, which took forever, and I found something very interesting. I decided to keep track by chapter, and I'm glad I did, because it turns out that there is a definite curve to the trend. There are a total of 104 occurrences of "always" including the title, but a third of them (30) are in the first chapter and there are almost as many (24) in the second. (There are 10 chapters.) The word disappears in chapter 7 and only appears once in chapter 8, the pair of which constitute the day of the fire. This is where everything changes. Nothing is as it was. Merricat's narration does not portray a positive continuity here (when Charles is there), though the word begins to appear, as if tentatively, in the last two chapters. I'm very interested to track the use of "never" now, and I think I will do the same for "sometimes" because a big part of my argument is that the illusion of continuity is undermined precisely at the same time that it is constructed. Hence, making sense and nonsense at the same time. Hm...